which the chaplain artfully interpreted: "For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the supphes: they shall share alike." Inactivity is hard on marines. Those on the Bonhomme Richard milled around the ship's narrow steel halls, hung out in the enlisted mess watching Fox News and war movies on a big-screen TV, cleaned and recleaned their weapons, and got on one another's nerves. "It's frustrating- we're good to go," Sergeant Arthur An- thony said Sea duty is uncomfortable. The enlisted mess is vast, low-ceilinged, and as chaotic as a high-school cafeteria, with lots of shouting and grab-ass. The din is maddening, and the air suffùsed with a heavy; rank odor, like steam-table water left too long. Unlike officers, who eat off crockery; enlisted sailors and ma- rines are served on sectional plastic trays. Their salad bar is more extensive than the officers', but otherwise their food is worse-garlic bread made of hot-dog rolls, thick squares of pizza beribboned with orange cheese, soggy spaghetti. A lance corporal said it made him pine for a Jäger Bomb-the herbal liqueur Jäger- meister mixed with Red Bull. An aircraft carrier is often compared to a floating cit)r, but, with its stale air, the incessant clang of heavy steel doors, and pasty-faced men in coveralls threading ., ; ' \.s . -;:; . :x:j::t: 2L -=:'-:-. . ._.. ' r,6 .-. .. '0:' -I; " r f . . .. . . ; \", . , ' , ':::. , . "..... " f .'. -'. , , j 4 ..' :?t (Jn ' J:' .. ,Q , . , :, , ' , ' , :.( . .::. .;. :.,:. . . , ! ..0..'--:";1: ".":!\:. ":', o }. () D .. . ./t..;: ," '?îi,\; . ; . : : iJ ...i-- 'k\ C'f;1r . .. } i ! .' :\P;, poorly lit corridors, it feels more like a floating prison. Nobody is allowed on the flight deck without good reason, so the only glimpse of the outdoors that most sailors and marines get is from a vast hangar bay one deck down, and only when the huge elevator hatches- through which aircraft are pushed onto moving platforms-are left open to the sea. Many crew members on the Bon- homme Richard see as little of the sun as they would if they were serving on a submarine. Off-duty officers wanting a moment's peace can sit in the wardroom, which, though not luxurious, is at least quiet, but the enlisted people's only ref- uge from noise and commotion is their bunk, or "rack" -a slot in a stack of beds ten feet high, with the bunk above so close that it's impossible to read in bed. It's a tribute to the allure of the services that so many marines reënlist. Their discomfort helps explain why they're in such magnificent physical condition: they burn off bottled-up energy by working out endlessly in the ship's stuffY but well-equipped gym. As I was pass- ing through one evening, three marines with superhero physiques were watching American Forces Network News while running on treadmills. The lawyer for Army Specialist Charles Graner, who was on trial for abusing prisoners at Abu L___., / 1M ...c. \ -. :J ..:... . '." . . it?' ":..,., , . c) (j', c . - r ..,, '. ..:;. :;.., A: "f.":,', J :.: .; . . '..(; : : i'.;',; ,.'; :j:19 :.._: .. 'j; ;: "S.<d y L< : ..:::) : .',' :"; T;:,::;;. r l: ;,' .J,, , '/::" Yo_.."... , . . . .. . ...... ,' . )( ".it ,:. . . ......... . ; " -':'.J;:':' . .....,:.. :tt, .:. .. 1. . 3,,:::1. , u.-.. ' "-'1':' :" "" ". hl }, uy. .,' J>, ,<t:." k' e.'( rJGs , Ghraib, was telling the camera that forc- ing prisoners to make a pyramid with their bodies isn't abuse, because Ameri- can cheerleaders make pyramids all the time. "They're not wasting too much time defending this guy if they got him a lawyer that dumb," one of the tread- milling marines said. "You're going to Leavenworth, dude." People's lives were at stake in Suma- tra, but everybody on the Bonhomme Richard, down to the newest private, seemed aware that something else hung in the balance as well. The United States had a rare opportunity to make a grand gesture of friendship to the Islamic world at a time when many Muslims were viewing the war in Iraq, and the broader war on terror, as a cover for a war on Islam. Marines tend to be idealistic. They believe that the United States is righteous, and those on the Bonhomme Richard were genuinely eager to get out there and prove it. The Navy; too, had something to prove-that, in an era of small infantry wars, a big blue-water force remains relevant. A few months ago, a retired two-star Army general named Robert Scales, a former com- mandant of the Army War College, summarized a view often heard from the men in green. He told me, "They haven't fought a blue-water sea battle SInce Leyte GlllL" in 1944. "If you believe, as I do, that the wars of the conceivable future are going to look like Iraq, why do we have so many men, and so much mone floating around the ocean?" When I re- peated this to Admiral Ames, he sighed as though he'd heard it too often. The tsunami-relief effort was, for Ames and his branch, a chance to answer that ques- tion. "We've talked about this idea of sea-basing for several years, of being able to project power anywhere in the world without asking permission," he said. "What we're doing here validates the beauty of it." T he ship woke on January 10th to the news that the Marines were finally going ashore in force. What's more, they were going in the miraculous vehicle that has replaced the landing craft of yore: the Landing Craft Air Cushion, or LCAC (pronounced "EL-kack").The LCAC is es- sentially a gigantic everglades boat, a plat- form eighty-eight feet long and forty-four feet wide that rides on an inflatable rubber